A photo in a standup frame was centered on one of the shelves—she and a nice-looking, heavyset man about her age, the two of them in Hawaiian shirts and bedecked with leis. Social work diplomas made out to Jean Marie LaPorte were propped on another shelf, all from California colleges. I scanned the dates. If she'd graduated college at twenty-two, she was exactly forty-five.

“You're a clinical psychologist, right?” she said, sitting behind the desk.

I took one of the chairs. “Yes.”

“You know, when Detective Sturgis mentioned your name I thought I recognized it, though I still can't figure out from where.”

She smiled again. I returned it.

She said, “How does a psychologist come to be a police consultant?”

“By accident, really. Several years ago I was treating some children who'd been abused at a day-care center. I ended up testifying in court and getting involved in the legal system. One thing led to another.”

“Day-care center—the man who took pictures? The one involved with that horrible molesters' club?”

I nodded.

“Well, that must be where I remember your name from. You were quite a hero, weren't you?”

“Not really. I did my job.”

“Well,” she said, sitting forward and pushing hair out of her eyes, “I'm sure you're being modest. Child abuse is so—to tell you the truth, I couldn't work with it myself. Which may sound funny considering what we deal with here. But children—” She shook her head. “It would be too hard for me to find any sympathy for the abusers even if they were once victims themselves.”

“I know what you mean.”

“To me that's the lowest—violating a child's trust. How do you manage to deal with it?”

“It wasn't easy,” I said. “I saw myself as the child's ally and tried to do whatever helped.”

“Tried? You don't do abuse work anymore?”

“Occasionally, when it comes up as part of a custody case. Mostly I consult the court on trauma and divorce issues.”

“Do you do any therapy at all?”

“Not much.”

“Me, neither.” She sat back. “My main goal in school was to become a therapist, but I can't remember the last time I actually did any real therapy.”

She smiled again and shook her head. The wave of hair covered her eyes and she flipped it back—a curiously adolescent mannerism.

“Anyway,” she said, “about what Detective Sturgis wants, I just don't know how I can really help. I really need to safeguard our people's confidentiality—despite what happened to Becky.” She folded her lips inward, lowered her eyes, and shook her head.

I said, “It must have been terrifying.”

“It happened too quickly to be terrifying—the terrifying part didn't hit me until after it was over—seeing her . . . what he . . . now I really know what they mean by posttraumatic stress. No substitute for direct experience, huh?”

She pressed the skinny upper lip with one finger, as if keeping it still.